A hernia defect is an opening or weakness in a tissue or muscle wall, such as the abdominal wall. One approach for repairing a hernia is to cover the tissue or muscle wall defect with a patch of repair fabric or mesh. The patch may be placed in an open procedure or through a minimally invasive procedure, such as by a laparoscopic technique.
In a laparoscopic hernia repair, a patch may be rolled up and delivered through a narrow cannula to a treatment site. After laparoscopic deployment, a resilient support member, such as a resilient frame, associated with the patch may expand the patch to an enlarged deployed configuration. The expanded patch including the resilient support member is then fixated to the tissue or muscle wall over the defect using sutures, staples, tacks and/or other fixation elements. For example, such fixation elements may be applied around a border region, and/or at other locations, of the patch into healthy tissue surrounding the defect. In some instances a repair prosthetic may include a central tether attached to the frame in such a manner that a free end of the central tether may be drawn through the abdominal wall to outside of the patient. Continued pulling of the central tether biases the frame, and the associated patch body of the repair prosthetic upwardly against the abdominal wall. Biasing the repair prosthetic against the abdominal wall helps to facilitate holding the repair prosthetic in place during fixation.